Differential Quadrature Method For Solving Bed Load Sediment Transport

Abstract

Sediment transport is crucial for designing, and operating hydraulic structures. Hence, itsprediction has forced researches to study it through experimental and mathematical modeling works. Mathematical modeling has gained importance especially with the advent of powerfulcomputers. These modeling studies are mostly based on the numerical solutions of transport equations of the partial differential equations with finite difference, finite element or finite volume methods. This study, as an alternative to existing methods, has developed a numerical technique, called differential quadrature method (DQM). The DQM expresses a differential at apoint as a function of products of weight coefficients and the functional values at each point ofthe domain. The weight coefficients are determined using one of the several algorithms such asthe Langrangian, depending upon the spacing intervals. In this study, bed load sediment transport equation, coupled with flow equations of the continuity and momentum, is solved using the DQM. The performance of the model is tested against that of the finite difference method and aswell as the experimental data. The results revealed that DQM can also be employed in modeling bed load sediment transport.